dabeaz : blog

The random musings of David Beazley, an
independent Chicago-area software developer, teacher, and author.

Running a 5K versus Field Day

June 7, 2015

One of the more interesting parts of being a parent is getting
to relive parts of your childhood—and as the end of the school
year has arrived, I find myself thinking about the joy and misery
of my experience with the annual grade school "field day" event.

Yep, that’s me. Look at my special ribbon—for something.

Yes, as a child of the 70s, field day was that one special day of the
year where you got to forego the usual grade school activites of tag,
dodgeball, and taunting in favor of a highly competitive kiddie
version of the decathalon in which everyone got to pretend that they
were Caitlyn Jenner at the 1976 Olympics. There was sprinting,
throwing, high jumping, long jumping, rope climbing, and of course, everyone’s
favorite event—participation. Good thing that participation event--
no matter how badly the whole day would shake out, at least you’d
still get to go home with something just for being you.

In any case, I still remember the anticipation of field day each
year. My brother and I would sometimes go out in the yard and practice
the few events in which we might have a chance of placing—typically
high jumping and, of course, participation. Mostly though, my
memories of field day are of disappointment. Coming home year after
year with no ribbons (except for the aforementioned participation
event and occasionally from a group activity such as tug-of-war).

6th Grade Tug-of-War. Preparing me to fight the Soviets probably.

I’m sure the school’s intentions were noble, but if the goal of field
day was to instill a love of sport, it failed miserably
with me. In later grades, I occasionally remember having to do things
like run a 100 yard dash or even a lap around the track-- usually
characterized by a lot of side-stitches and shin splints. I hated
every second of it. By some stroke of good fortune, my deliverance
from PE came in the form of a decision by the school to
count marching band as physical activity. Honestly, I never really
figured out that whole calculus. Then again, I guess sweating away
5 pounds of body weight in the hot sun watching a football game
had to count for something. So be it. I digress.

Flash forward about 40 years and I find my son, now 6 years old,
nearing the end of first grade. As an end-of-year activity, his school
was going to have him run a 5K. In fact, every kid grades 1-8 runs the
5K. It is not optional. Many of them are joined by their parents. It
sounded like a perfect opportunity for me to run a 5K despite never having done so before.

In anticipation of the start

I must admit I was a bit skeptical about the prospects for successful
completion of this 5K run. Thinking back on my childhood, I don’t
recall running a distance even remotely close to that. Honestly, I
wasn’t really sure what was going to transpire. Was the kid going to go
out sprinting about 200 yards and then collapse into a kind of whining
misery for the remaining 3 miles? Would I have to carry him back
home? With six year olds, you just never know sometimes.

Even for myself, this was going to be a challenge. I hated running as
a kid and although I’m pretty active with biking, going out and
running a 5K with no preparation didn’t seem very feasible (especially
in light of my clydesdale non-running computer coder body and the fact
that I was also recovering from a broken rib). In fact, I did about 6
weeks of training prior to the 5K day—mostly just running increasing
distances around the neighborhood in the early morning hours before I
had to take the kids to school.

Running Day

Running day arrives and I find myself in the local park with all of
the kids and parents. Each grade is to start the 5K run at staggered
times with the first graders leading the whole thing off. The kids
gather with their parents in the starting area and the rest of the
school gathers in front of them. We’re off and the first graders
blast out of the starting area like rockets. The whole school is
cheering "Go first grade! Go first grade!" It is amazing.

After the initial excitement of the start wears off, the kids settle
into a more steady pace and spread out a bit. I’m running alongside
carrying some water. At every turn, people are cheering my child by
name and offering high fives as we pass. It is inspiring.

From time to time, we stop to walk a bit and have some water. However,
for the most part we continue to run along—often inspired by some
fast 2nd graders who pass by and offer encouragement. It is about
this point that I’m starting to think about just how awesome this
whole experience is compared to "field day." Most field day events
are over-and-done in a matter of a few seconds (a long throw, a jump,
or whatever) followed by a lot of time standing around to think about
how crappy you just did and how you won’t be getting a ribbon once again.
Running a 5K is a whole different game altogether. Aside from it
being a non-bullshit accomplishment for someone at any age, the kid is
out there running nonstop for maybe 30 or 40 minutes. How did the
school actually prepare my kid to have the focus and stamina to do
this? My mind is blown as we continue to run towards the halfway
mark.

We reach the halfway point and the head of the school is there to
greet us, give us a special hand stamp and send us on our way back in
the direction that we just came. As an out-and-back running route,
we’re now passing by all of the older kids as we continue to
run. People are offering encouragement all
around—especially to the first graders. The pace accelerates a bit
as we reach the 30 minute point and the finish line is nearing. The
kid is still hanging in there and running along as I’m watching in
disbelief.

As the finish line approaches, we’re now being cheered by a crowd of
eager kindergarteners who have been watching the whole affair in
anticipation of their turn to give it a go next year. We cross the
line with a total time of about 39 minutes. "Not too bad" I’m
thinking (confession: as part of my training, I ran a non-stop 5K the
week before just to see if I could do it—that took 35 minutes).

After the run

Some Thoughts

Running the school 5K with my child easily ranks as one of the most
beautiful things I’ve witnessed in my whole life. In fact, I’ll admit
that I shed a few quiet tears of joy thinking about it the days that
followed.

Many of my thoughts focus on just how awesome the run was on so many
levels. There’s the immediate satisfaction of simply having completed
it. I didn’t know if I could run a 5K and I certainly had no idea if
my kid would do it. Seeing it happen was deeply moving. In
preparing for the run, I also realized that running wasn’t nearly as
bad as I remember from childhood. Although I don’t see myself
running a future marathon, I’ll admit that it felt pretty good to
go out there and run a bit in the morning. In fact, I’ve continued to
run a bit even though the 5K is over. Involving the parents was
a pretty neat move if you ask me and made the whole affair so much
more about community than being a mere footrace.

At a deeper level though, so much of school these days seems to be
focused on fierce competition. Competition for test scores, for
sports, for science fairs, for the arts, and the race to get into the
most elite schools. I think the real genius of the 5K was that it was
none of that. For the first graders, it was simply a challenge to see
if they could complete a non-trivial goal. In the coming grades, the
5K now offers them an opportunity to compete against themselves in a
challenge of continuing self-improvement and to offer their
support to the younger kids. In the end, maybe that’s
the most important lesson they could learn. There’s a lot of wisdom in
that.

So, I say let the lame "field day" competition go. Go run a 5K
with your kid instead. Better yet, get your kid’s school to do it.